Before we look at the second song, listen to the beginning of the song that inspired it.
Nirvana’s song Smells Like Teen Spirit, which was released in 1991, uses repetitive, distorted guitar/bass guitar riffs as well as rhythmic drum sounds to accompany the singer (Kurt Cobain). The bass guitar varies slightly from verse to chorus, but otherwise remain constantly playing the same riff throughout the song, while the drums change a lot more between the chorus and verse, becoming less intense for the quieter verses, only to come crashing back to life for the loud choruses. The drums, however, were not the inspiration for this track, as I was more interested in the distorted guitar sounds and the repetitive melody.
It was my intention for this 120bpm track to take some if its inspiration from Smells Like Teen Spirit (which is mainly used in the beginning bass part, leading into a heavier, distorted bass guitar line on my song), wanting a grunge-y feel to the majority of the song. To this effect, I designed the drums (which consisted of a kick, hi-hat, snare, crash and toms) to be a simple repetitive rhythm, not too far back in the mix since I did not want it to be buried underneath the bass guitars, but not as loud as the bass parts to keep the focus on them. The reason I kept it simple was because the melody and solo parts were being performed by the bass guitars, both of which were the focal points of the song, and the drums were pretty much only there to help keep the rhythm while the bass guitars did their thing. Similar to the drums in Nirvana’s song, the drums in this track were designed in time with the bass riff, working with it to hold the structure of the song together, especially during the choruses, with enough variety in the velocity on the hi-hats to help make the drums sound less robotic.
Unlike all of the other tracks in the EP, this one does not include much in terms of velocity changes, so there is not much to talk about here. It is all increased to the maximum so the drum sounds are the loudest and harshest they can be, which seemed to fit in well with the grunge-like feel of the song due to how loud it was.